Items25The creator’s order
  1. 1Barack ObamaBarack ObamaBorn 4 Aug 1961Obama's years organising on Chicago's South Side belong in his political story before the presidential campaign. Gerald Kellman, who hired him in 1985, describes a young organiser learning through relationships with churches and residents. The useful distinction is between arriving with ideas and…0i
  2. 2Stacey AbramsStacey AbramsBorn 9 Dec 1973Abrams's New Georgia Project made voter registration an organisational commitment during her years in the state legislature. Reporting on its 2014 effort reveals paid field workers alongside volunteers, making the labour behind the grassroots label visible. Her contribution here is that continuing…0i
  3. 3John LewisJohn LewisBorn 21 Feb 1940Lewis directed the Voter Education Project from 1970 to 1977, between his best-known civil-rights marches and his congressional career. Sustaining voter registration across the South required years of organisational work after the landmark protests and legislation. That less familiar part of his…0i
  4. 4Fannie Lou HamerFannie Lou HamerBorn 6 Oct 1917Hamer's organising grew out of the struggle to register in Sunflower County, Mississippi, where an attempted registration in 1962 cost her both work and housing. Working with SNCC and local residents, she helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964. Her famous convention testimony…0i
  5. 5Shirley ChisholmShirley ChisholmBorn 30 Nov 1924When Chisholm challenged Brooklyn's Democratic establishment in 1968, she could call on community organisers she had worked with for more than a decade. Her earlier involvement in the Bedford-Stuyvesant Political League and Unity Democratic Club gave that challenge an organisational history. A…0i
  6. 6Harvey MilkHarvey MilkBorn 22 May 1930Castro Camera was both Milk's neighbourhood shop and a base for his campaigns. Work with the Castro Village Association and the first Castro Street Fair connected commercial life, public gathering and political representation. The surviving storefront makes those relationships tangible: local…0i
  7. 7Paul WellstonePaul WellstoneBorn 21 Jul 1944The Wellstone Alliance continued work begun during his 1990 Senate campaign, linking community organising with electoral politics in Minnesota. Its archived records include a county coordinator project and support for Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidates beyond Wellstone himself. That continuing…0i
  8. 8Howard DeanHoward DeanBorn 17 Nov 1948As Democratic National Committee chair in 2005, Dean promoted a fifty-state strategy intended to strengthen local and state party organisation, including places outside the usual presidential battlegrounds. Contemporary reporting shows assessments and organiser hiring being developed with state…0i
  9. 9Alexandria Ocasio-CortezAlexandria Ocasio-CortezBorn 13 Oct 1989The shoes worn through during Ocasio-Cortez's 2018 campaign later entered a Cornell exhibition. Alongside accounts of volunteers canvassing, they provide an unusually concrete reminder of the physical work behind a campaign remembered nationally for its videos and unexpected result.0i
  10. 10Bernie SandersBernie SandersBorn 8 Sept 1941Burlington provides a smaller-scale starting point than Sanders's presidential rallies. In 1981 he won the mayoralty by ten votes after a campaign strengthened by volunteers and endorsements that included university professors and the police union. The University of Vermont's local history places…0i